The History of Cotton Strippers

1. Figure 1: The Hughes patent: combs stripped cotton bolls back into the wagon in back of the stripping unit. [Author's collection]

10. Figure 10: Front view of the same tractor stripper. Deere later made ten prototypes for demonstration purposes. However, they were equipped with a single pin-studded roll. [Deere and Company]

11.Figure 11: Deere first marketed a tractor-mounted stripper in 1944 and soon was manufacturing thousands for this new market. Illustration shows a 1947 version of their stripper equipped with a single roll made of stee

12.Figure 12: A typical West Texas harvest scene. [Deere and Company]

13. Figure 13: The latest Allis-Chalmers self-propelled cotton stripper with cleaner and bur extractor. The broadcast and narrow row head shown is a modification of the Hudspeth-Lubbock Station invention. [Allis-Chalmers]

14. Figure 14: Hand labor still serves a role but far diminished from the backbreaking days of handpulling cotton bolls. [Allis-Chalmers]

2. Figure 2: Z. B. Sims patent was brought to life again in 1914 on the High Plains of West Texas. [Author's collection]

Courtesy of Odin Jole, 704 Sycamore Lane, Rockford, Illinois, 61111

Odin Jole

3. Figure 3: The Pedrick stripper, 1874. [Author's collection]

4.Figure 4: The first Deere stripper. The design combined the inclined throat of a slot-type stripper with Pedrick's revolving rolls. [Deere and Company]

8. Figure 8: A slot type stripper.Deere continued to use studded steel rolls with doffing plates to remove bolls from the rolls. This machine performed encouragingly and prompted Deere- to eventually manufacture approximately 500 from 1931-32. [Deere and

9. Figure 9: This tractor-mounted, two-row stripper used two pin-studded rolls per unit. Shields are removed to show power transmission to stripping units. Dated June 3, 1929. [Deere and Company]

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